


Gentle Storm, Rage My Way

by greenbucket



Series: gentle storm [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bisexual Larissa "Lardo" Duan, F/F, Fluff, Ice Skating, Introspection, Multi, Open Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 20:18:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11721795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: Lardo knows that Ford has a crush on her.





	Gentle Storm, Rage My Way

**Author's Note:**

> Largely rambly/introspection on Lardo's part. 
> 
> Warning: includes kissing between a 19 year old and 22 year old and is from the perspective of the 22 year old, if that's something you don't like.
> 
> unbeta'd. Title from Elbow's _Gentle Storm_.

Lardo knows that Ford has a crush on her.

People seem to think she doesn’t or something – because Rans and Holster had tried to have a very awkward intervention with her about it like they didn’t even know her and, God, did she not need to be dealing with that right now – but she definitely knows. Just because she and Shits took their sweet time sorting their whatever out doesn’t mean she doesn’t know anything about feelings ever. She’s super on top of this stuff, it’s like her secret forte. Lardo just doesn’t see the need to talk about it too much, especially not this year where graduation looming has her literally and emotionally all over the place a bajillion million percent of the time.

So she doesn’t, like, confront Ford about the crush and she doesn’t back off or whatever it is Ransom and Holster (and Bitty. _God_. Lardo wants to forget) tried to hint towards.

Ford can handle it – Lardo remembers being nineteen clearly and being handled like a child by someone that’s supposed to be an equal would only have pissed her off, rubbing salt in the wound. She can still remember some well-meaning fellow art freshman pushing her towards Camilla Collins at a kegster because she was openly bi and so, so hot and funny and Lardo was way too obvious pulling her hair from behind her ears to cover her face whenever Camilla was anywhere nearby (and after Lardo had let her roomie tie her hair back in increasingly extravagant styles for weeks after to break the habit). The kiss had pretty much rocked Lardo’s world at the time by virtue of it involving a girl and kissing but it had hurt to be gently turned down a moment later, the placating apologetic edge to it only adding to the sting.

Ford seems resilient, else Lardo wouldn’t have let her be hired as her protégé, and while Lardo isn’t gonna lie and act like getting rejected by Camilla Collins has left some deep scar Lardo still doesn’t wanna put Ford or herself through that. So she’s leaving it for the time being. Ford is smart and quick and fun to be around and is shaping up to be a world class manager. She’ll probably move on from the crush soon enough anyways.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So you don’t know how to skate?” Dex asks, tone critical and arms folded. He’s standing against the boards during a lull in practice, ostensibly because it’s a nice place to lean but Lardo can tell he’s really continuing his ongoing assessment of Ford. It's been two weeks; everyone else, including Lardo, is already fully convinced and attached.

Ford shrugs. “Nope! More of a football family. I am good to learn though if you’re offering.”

Dex blinks as if he didn’t expect the willingness. “Oh. Well, I guess. I’ve never really taught anyone before.”

“I didn’t know how to either until like last year,” Lardo says in Ford’s defence.

Both Ford and Dex look surprised this time.

“Really? But you’re such a good manager!” says Ford.

“Who taught you then?” asks Dex.

“Managers do best off the ice,” Lardo says wisely rather than admit she doesn’t really like skating herself anyway and kinda sucks at it, “And Shitty taught me. I say taught, more like pulled me along a bunch. It was cool.”

“And that was enough to learn?” Dex asks.

“Chyeah,” says Lardo. Then, before he can ask more, “Now get back to practice.”

“Did you really learn that fast?” Ford asks once Dex has skated away, looking at Lardo slyly.

“Duh.”

“For real?”

“Yup.”

“No kidding?”

“Nope.”

“Then you can show me how after practice.”

“Sure,” Lardo says before she realises what Ford is asking. Ford smiles back innocently and Lardo feels like maybe she’s underestimated her.

Once the boys are done, Lardo takes Ford back to the equipment room and tells the coaches she’ll need the ice for twenty or so minutes but it all fits to schedule so no worries. They eye her but ultimately shrug and let it go; they’ve trusted her as a student with their entire hockey team for years, if she wanted to pull something she’d have done it by now. She gets just standard free skate skates for her and Ford then takes them over to the side to lace up.

“Ready?” Ford asks as they stand at the door.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, newbie?” Lardo says with a lot more confidence than she has and steps out onto the ice.

She immediately slips and manages to both do the splits and land directly on her ass. Ford gasps and rushes out onto the ice to help, only to also instantly fall over, landing on her hip with a thunk and a yelp of pain. For a moment, they lie there on the ice and assess both their injuries and the absurdity of the situation. Ford is the first to burst out laughing, the sound bouncing off the empty rink as she lies back and laughs so hard tears ooze out the corners of her eyes. Lardo only lasts a second longer before she’s laughing just as hard.

“Oh fuck,” she wheezes eventually, “My _ass_ , oh my God.”

“Did you split your leggings?” Ford asks, still trying to get her giggles under control.

“Ugh, probably. They’re sporty ones, too.”

“They really helped today.”

“Ughhh. Shut up,” Lardo says half-heartedly, hauling herself up to her knees. “C’mon, truth’s out. I can’t skate for shit.”

“I’d guessed,” Ford admits. “I just didn’t know you were that bad.”

“Man, like you’re any better,” Lardo grumbles. “Your hip okay?”

Ford is still on her back, looking out the Faber windows. She looks like a photograph in the grey light flooding in from the where it’s overcast and raining outside, at least until she looks back to Lardo and then she’s just Ford the rookie trainee manager theatre pro. It’s still nice. Lardo likes her even after she’s been witness to this humiliation, so that’s a good sign.

“It’s fine,” says Ford, “I’m just thinking about how when I get up I’m going to fall again.”

“Thanks for trying to save me.”

“No problem. Thanks for not teaching me to skate.”

“No probs. Truth is Shits held both my hands and pulled me very slowly around until I decided fuck this whole thing and said quits.”

“Cute. You can do that with me when my entire hip isn’t bruised.”

Lardo knows that Ford has a crush on her. She doesn’t know what to do with it right now. “Sorry, dude. You do know you’re gonna go totes numb from the ice if you don't get up, right?”

“There’s a great view of the sky here. Do you do landscapes? Have you ever done art of here? How come you never come help out on sets?”

Lardo sighs. She's flattered by the interest in her art but kneeling on ice isn't her ideal time to discuss it. “Crawl with me, bro.”

“Bro,” Ford says in what Lardo can only imagine is some affected attempt at imitating her.

“Well if you’d rather stay here til free skate, go for it,” she says and begins to crawl to the side alone.

Ford scrambles after her. “No, I’m coming!”

Lardo looks out the windows at the sky once they’re safely back off the ice. It really is a nice view, cool framing with the windows. She takes a quick snap on her phone after she’s back in just her socks to inspire her later, already considering some options for it when she’s arting for fun in the summer rather than now where it all makes her want to curl up in bed forever. It’s something nice to look forward to, a link to Samwell when she’s back home.

Lardo thinks maybe she was sneaky about it but a quick glance at Ford sees she’s been caught, Ford smiling at her a little smug and a lot pleased. 

"Good shot after all, huh?" she says.

"Guess so."

"Show me when it's done? I'd love to help out before even."

"Sure, if I need a hand," Lardo says then stops. She's only ever really trusted Shitty with her art projects before, has only ever really felt like his input wouldn't make it lose some of the authenticity. But Ford has experience with behind the scenes in theatre, it's only logical to trust her with subtle art help.  

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They’re at the Keagster and she and Rans pulled it off like a piece of art and her real birthday was a few days ago but it’s her birthday and Lardo smashed it at beer pong. Again. Against Alexei Mashkov and against three people in a row just now. She is the master.

It feels pretty swawesome to have it affirmed, even if she kinda wishes Shitty were here so they could take a minute outside of the noise of the room together now it’s getting a little heavy. But he’s probs passed out drooling into his textbook in his favourite study space by now she figures, the group chat muted because he’s been looking grey with his stupid never-ending Harvard deadlines (even though it’s spring break which Lards can’t help but see as pretty evil even for Harvard). Plus, he was down to watch Jack with them just a few days ago and she promised Chowder he could have a turn on having someone (meaning Caitlin) over so it would be cramped with him anyway; the first time Caitlin had stayed over with Chowder and Shits with her at the same time the bathroom had been a packed in disaster in the morning. 

The Haus is packed as that bathroom for the kegster, the music pounding from all sides as planned, and Lardo’s glad to see Ford for real came along, even though she’d promised to once they’d pulled the birthday ticket on her. For all her sighs about tenacious theatre types, Ford’s still been hesitant to come to large team stuff like parties even though there are plenty of pics of her partying up with the theatre kids. Since Lardo feels like Ford is almost her rookie, feels kinda responsible for her integrating with the team and so kinda sucky that it’s not happened totally yet, but she gets that; the boys are nearly all loud as fuck and all of them are messy when it comes to drinking. Sometimes she needs to escape to her art friends for a while, too, especially now Jack and Shits are both gone and everyone occupied with their own junk, leaving her feeling unmoored and weird for random periods of empty time.

But Lardo doesn’t want to get all mopey about the future at the fucking Keagster on her fucking birthday, especially when she’s been doing so well not stressing in the quiet before finals where lecturers and parents alike are acting like graduation isn’t right around the corner. (But, fuck, she’s an _art student_. What do art students even do after they graduate?)

It’s whatever. At least she beat Tater at beer pong and she could make her and Rans’ birthday a blast and she’s going to have a sleepy voicemail from Shitty to wake up to tomorrow from his walk home when he wakes up at 4am, whining a little about having to backread a drunken group chat and apologising again that he couldn’t be there for her party and the same fizz in her stomach when he ends with a ‘love you’.

And the Keagster going on around her is distraction enough for the time being. There are a hundred half-shells of plastic eggs on the floor that are getting crushed underfoot and right now the music is just a little too house for Lardo’s taste. She hopes Bits or someone gets through to change it soon because _dude_ is it repetitive when it’s not getting her in the zone for painting.

That said, people are dancing to it and shouting to each other over it happy enough. A little ways away Ford looks a little freer than usual. Not that she ever looks uptight – her clothes are brightly coloured for all their style should be way stuffy, plus she’s a ready smiler in a way Lardo can never manage – but she’s always busy, compact and hurrying about and taking notes on all the details. Lardo’s a small person herself and knows first-hand the demands of being manager, forget whatever theatre stuff Ford has mentioned still being part of, so she gets that too.

It’s just nice to see her letting lose a little more. Her earrings twinkle in the light and she’s sleeveless for once, probably warmed up from where she’s dancing with Nursey and Tango in the middle of a throng of people, her skirt swishing as she moves. None of them look that co-ordinated but they look like they’re having fun, only getting more enthusiastic when someone starts the bouncy pop playlist Lardo had agreed to including with little fight.

It makes her feel like a cliché that she wants to paint them, or sketch them, or something. Lardo doesn’t resent herself for being a little outside the energy of things sometimes and especially not now when she gets to see scenes like this begging to be captured: Ford bright and clear at the centre with Nursey and Tango present but less stark, their colours more subdued, and everyone else even less so, blending to darker and less distinct towards the edge of the canvass. Or something. Lardo’s always felt more at ease _doing_ the art and letting it talk for her than commenting on the process a bunch.

Ford looks over at her then where Lardo’s sat perched and watching the crowd. She smiles and Lardo smiles back, knowing herself beckoned over even though she can’t hear Ford over the music so she slips into the crowd and makes her way over. Ford meets her halfway there, squeezing between two guys that look suspiciously lax-bro but not enough for Lardo to get Holster on the case, and still dancing a little on the spot.

“Hey, Lardo. This is a great epic Easter party!” Ford tells her happily, the alcohol she must have drunk a little more apparent up close. She smells like whatever soda she’d used as a mixer, probs while pregaming with Tango and Whiskey since the Haus mostly has beers and a weak attempt at tub juice.

“Yup. Keagster, though,” Lardo corrects her.

“What?” Ford yells.

“Keagster.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you. What?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

 Ford accepts easily enough. “Happy birthday again, by the way. It’s so neat the way you guys organised all this!”

“Thanks,” Lardo says. "It came out pretty swawesome."

“I guess I should’ve expected it, with you having all your manager skills. And it’s the _hockey team_ , I’m just a frosh and even I know you guys, like, love to party. All those emotions.”

Lardo nods, because that’s true. “All true, bro. You're nearly ex-frosh now.”

Ford laughs. "Don't remind me! This year's gone so fast, I feel like I barely arrived and settled in and it's already over."

"You get to chill your second year. Socially I mean. Less pressure to impress," Lardo says, although she'd given up the first few weeks in. "You gonna do some studying abroad?"

Ford shakes her head a little sadly. "No, I don't think so. It's so much to sort, you know? It's okay. I'll just stay here, trying to fill your shoes."

"You'll be good," Lardo says honestly. "You're already on top of all of it and you've braved the ice. Way ahead of me when I was your age."

"Oh! That's nice to know. The boys speak so highly of you, it's hard to tell," Ford says. “You aren’t going to dance?” she asks after a moment.

Lardo’s been swaying vaguely to the beat since she’d joined the crowd but she isn’t sure about dancing, not like Ford was with Tango and Nursey. It’s just not as deeply her thing as it is for the others. But she does like to dance, and she’s been feeling half a step out of the Keagster for the last while which isn’t what she’s looking for from a spring break birthday extravaganza, and possibly one of her last at Samwell.

“Yeah, I’ll dance,” she says.

It’s nice and easy to fall into it with Ford, a little drunk, encouraging her with her own ridiculous dance moves and the music upbeat against Lardo’s ears. She can see Bits give her a wave and a thumbs up that she returns as he passes, flushed from his own drinking. Maybe she should drink some more – swallow down the not right tub juice – but the edge of tipsy she’s been wandering along for a while (with the help of a joint shared between a couple of the boys earlier) is pretty comfortable. Ford’s earrings are still twinkling at her under the lights, her smile easy and just as eye-catching as Lardo lets Ford lift her arm for her to twirl.

Maybe she should have expected it, not drunk or high enough to be blind to the way Ford gets flustered when their dancing puts them closer together, but in Lardo’s defence she’s thrown off by the chatter that comes first:

“So, I was thinking you should know since it’s your birthday and nearly graduation and all that I’m so glad you taught me all the things about managing! It’s been really great to spend time with you – I mean to learn it all from you because it’s a great job and I think you’re really good at teaching. I mean you’re just really cool, I’ve always thought so. And I think we are– we could be good friends and you're really pretty– I mean– Well! I know you sort of have a guy, that lawyer one, but I’m just really pretty drunk and I’m worried if not now then maybe never and–”

And then Ford is sort of flinging herself at Lardo, her lips landing just to the side of Lardo’s mouth. Lardo has a moment to think everything at once: surprise, embarrassment, pleasure ready to bloom in her stomach, Ford’s lipstick tacky and warm and her lips soft, _Shitty said if we want something like this it’s okay_ , her and Shitty both more complicated and less complicated than everyone thinks, Ford’s hand trembling slightly on Lardo’s arm where it rested to steady herself, _she’s nineteen and a freshman and you’re graduating_ , and, most importantly, _what if everyone’s watching?_  

Lardo pulls away and manages to drag her and Ford away from the centre of the room and toward a more secluded corner, the layout of the Haus like muscle memory now after all the years and drunken kegsters, the early starts and late finishes to roadies and final projects. 

Ford’s glasses make her eyes look comically wide as she stares horrified at Lardo, mouth hanging open. “Oh my God, I am _so_ sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I mean I do but– That was so inappropriate and I am really so sorry, oh my God–”

Lardo wants to kiss her again but she doesn’t know what to do. She’d had one night stands over the years and a few couple-of-dates deals but Ford is half her rookie and half something else that she’s been ignoring and she doesn’t want either of those things with her, at least not now. Maybe she should have nipped Ford’s thing for her before it became this and became this _now_ , when things are good with Shits and graduation is only soul-crushing uncertainty when she thinks about it instead of constantly. It’s a fuss Lardo doesn’t need and she has half a mind to just shut it down now before it becomes anything else, for her or Ford.

Ford is still apologising, her face tight with embarrassment and upset and both amplified by the alcohol.

Lardo remembers herself, proud but inexperienced and more shaken than Camilla probably ever realised by their kiss. Because that was her first kiss _ever_ with a girl and it was sudden and awkward and really it was the embarrassment more than anything that stung for so long after (that people thought she and Camilla would just match because two bi girls together do, that painfully shy, before-Lardo-Larissa was inexperienced and incapable enough to need help, that Camilla was so very attractive but there was nothing when they kissed), that burned itself out into being pissed off that Camilla was nice about it. And these are probably Ford’s first steps, basing off her flinging kiss technique.

And that decides it for Lardo. She wishes she could be articulate and elegant with her words because this is, like, important but that’s never been her style. She thinks Ford gets that, might get _her_.

"Duh we're friends, Ford," she says because of course they are and then she kisses Ford again, this time for real, and tries to put a lot of what she wants to say into it: that it wasn’t a mistake or something to apologise for, mainly, but also hopefully that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Some kind of strength and solidarity, if it can be called that when Lardo gets kissing a cute girl out of it.

Ford definitely responds enthusiastically enough, just as warm and soft as before. Lardo feels flushed and overwarm and her heart is beating against her ribs by the time they pull apart. Man. She’s going to have to figure things out about this.

“Don’t worry about it now, bro,” Lardo tells her before Ford can speak. “Get Whiskey to get you and Tango back to dorms safe before you’re all schwasted. Text me, we’ll get brunch at Jerry’s.”

Ford’s eyes are still wide but the horror’s gone, replaced with a shy wonder, so that’s what matters. She nods and gives a kinda coherent goodbye, Lardo keeping an eye on her through the room to make sure she finds Whiskey or Tango before escaping herself up the stairs to the reading room. It makes her miss Shitty more than ever but the air is cool enough to clear her head and let the flush fade. She kissed Ford, or Ford kissed her, but it was Ford. Her trainee rookie who really is so attractive and is energetic enough to keep up with their whole hockey team and loud enough that Lardo can be quiet next to her without it being weird and she understands the arts. Sometimes when she laughs she snorts. She can't ice skate but she can roller blade. Lardo likes her. It's something she's pretty much gotta accept now, it's just what she does with that knowledge.

The music loud enough that she feels at the edge of the Keagster a while longer, taking a couple of stress snapchats for Bitty so they can talk with context later, before she goes to bed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lardo wakes up earlier than she would have expected the next morning considering how late she was awake until. Her eyes feel gritty but her mind is already whirring.

The sounds of the clean-up haven’t started yet and she debates staying in bed a little longer for Chowder and Caitlin’s sake next door, even though she feels gross from falling into bed without even brushing her teeth and her hair is plastered to her scalp with grease already. Her phone tells her she has four unread emails on her college email, the predicted voicemail from Shitty that makes her smile without even listening, endless messages from the group chat that she forgot to mute, a text from her mom, six snapchats from Bitty and two from Nursey and three from Holster, full lives on Candy Crush, her news app informing her politics is still on its bullshit, and one text from Ford.

 **Ford** (5:33AM)

_hey, I’m free all day! I should probably sleep a little more though, that was the last time I’m letting Whiskey mix my drinks >___>_

Lardo doesn’t have read receipts on so she doesn’t feel bad about not replying immediately. She needs to talk to Shitty first before she does anything, both about how he feels and so she can figure out how she feels, and it wouldn’t be bros to wake him now when he got home so late, so she sends a text saying she’s phoning after she’s showered whether he’s awake or not. Lardo settles in to sort through her other notifications in the meantime, screenshotting for chirping purposes as appropriate.

When Lardo does finally make it to the bathroom, she realises that some of Ford’s lipstick is smudged around her mouth from their kiss. It’s a deep pink, unmistakably not from her own range of lipsticks she has in her room. She stares at the marks in the mirror longer than maybe feels casual, fingers tracing the smudged outline and half-aware of the sounds of Chowder and Cait waking up on the other side of the door, before she pulls out a fresh make-up wipe to do away with the lipstick for real and get into the shower.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 **Shits** **♥** (10:27AM)

_u got this bro!!!!!!!!!!!!!  ur a beaut, gimme the 411 even if im sleeping or crushed the fuck to death under the weight of my unfinished work lol_

 

 **Lardooooooooooooooo** (10:28AM)

 _thanks shits B)_ _♥♥♥♥♥_ _mvp_

 

 **Lardo Duan** (10:34AM)

_sup, how’s 11:15 for jerry’s?_

 

 **Ford** (10: 41AM)

_sounds good!_

 

 **Lardo Duan** (10:41AM)

 _swawes_ _♥_

 

 **Ford** (10:43AM)

 _:)_ _♥_


End file.
